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Saturday, October 22, 2011

So, this is cool... remember that Jane Austen contest I told you about many months ago? The one where you had to enter your own story in the style of Jane Austen? Well, they just released the book and my story was in it, along with 55 others. It was a fun write, one that was harder that I thought, but also entertaining and enlightening.

Who knew how hard it would be to use long words, an ancient vocabulary and extremely wordy and unintelligable sentences? (Okay some intelligent sentences; Jane was a genius. Me? Not a genius)

The thing is, not a whole lot of people actually entered this contest, so had YOU entered this one, you would have probably gotten in too! Mine wasn't exceptional. But, they published it anyway. Go here, to Amazon, to see the cover and a few excerpts.

Let this be a lesson: always enter writing contest and call for submissions and send your work to agents... even if you think it's a long shot, it can never hurt to try. Because seriously, coming from someone who just had a manuscript rejected -- and wondering if writing was even her calling -- if they can publish me, they will publish you.

1. This is proof that thousands of people out there are just like you. You can write, you can do it. And you are not alone!

2. You have one month: 30 days, to get 50,000 words down. They don't have to be perfect. Just written.

3.Once you see how a little bit every day (or roughly 1666 words a day) equates to a whole book, well

that'll motivate anyone to write!

4. You can write about anything you want.

5. You can write an outline even, and go by that everyday.

6. You have a network of people you can talk to in your part of town or the world, who are doing this just like you!

At the end of the month, you a have a written book -- yes, a book written by YOU -- and all you had to do was find your way during the day or night to park yourself in your chair and type away. For me, that's one hour if very motivated, two hours if not so motivated and 3 or 4 if lagging in vision. Regardless, it's a goal. And I love goals.

What's also cool is that NaNoWriMo goes against the "quality vs. quantity." This time, it's all

about quantity... the quality comes later when the writing is done.

So get ready. In three weeks, November 1st, the writing begins. Go sign up! You'll be glad you did, especially 50, 000 words later.